Final game at old field feels right

Pete Iorizzo, Commentary

Published 10:08 pm, Saturday, November 17, 2012

"It's not a nice place to watch a football game," Bob Ford was saying about University Field, home of the University at Albany football program he has coached since its founding.

Ford was describing an outdated facility in which the only reasonable sightlines can be found in the first three rows of bleachers, where wooden seats are bolted to cracking concrete and the rust spreads like moss on the metal section markers.

And he was saying this in 1987.

Late Saturday afternoon, Ford was standing on the same field, looking out at those same dilapidated bleachers, clutching the Northeast Conference championship trophy as "We are the Champions" played over the loudspeakers.

When the party that followed the Danes' 63-34 victory over Central Connecticut State finally ended, Ford left his poor excuse for a football facility for the last time, and he did so with a share of the NEC championship, the program's sixth in the past 14 years.

"I guess because I came here and started a program on this field there's a portion of me that says this will always be home," Ford said. "Forty-three years is a long time to coach at a place. I've been blessed with a lot of great kids and great coaches.

"Yeah, I will miss it."

Now, don't misunderstand: No one's eye black will be smeared by tears when the bulldozer finally puts those peeling purple bleachers in their rightful resting place, a landfill.

If Ford decides to coach next year, he'll do so in a brand new $18 million facility that nobody deserves more, not after he made lemonade at University Field for more than four decades, winning at the club, Division III, Division II and Division I levels in a building barely suitable for the Albany High junior varsity team.

The only reason University Field feels like home is Ford always has refused to look around his home and just take a knee. His teams always have outperformed their building, which is one reason athletic director Lee McElroy wants Ford, 75, to put off retirement and coach next year, in the new stadium and in the Colonial Athletic Association.

"What we're going to do is strongly encourage him ... to be here and lead us," McElroy said. "We wouldn't be building this wonderful facility if not for him."

University Field, on the other hand, predates even Ford. It was built in 1967, three years before the school even started a football program. The field runs east to west, with both end zones exposed to sun and wind. They finally put up goalposts when Ford arrived in 1970.

Through the years, the stadium hosted games as weird and ugly as the rickety press box perched on the Physical Education Building, overlooking the field.

There was the game against Southern Connecticut State in November 1997 when 10 inches of snow fell; a four-man grounds crew plowed the field with tractors an hour before kickoff. The sidelines were ringed by 4-foot snowbanks. The teams combined for 619 yards of offense. UAlbany won, 42-40.

A year later, the Danes fell behind 24-0 to American International in an Eastern Football Conference championship game, only to score the next 25 points. In the final minute, American International lined up for a 47-yard field goal. A wind gust blew the try wide left. Maybe the guys who built the stadium east-west were onto something, after all.

"It's just a really tough place to watch a college football game," Ford said. "But we've called it home."

Not every memory is a fond one. The Danes won a share of the NEC title Saturday, but to qualify for the FCS playoffs, they needed Duquesne to beat Wagner, a team that had come to Ford's home earlier this month and won, 30-0.

Ford asked that the public-address announcer make no mention of the Wagner-Duquesne score, but the school did set up a big-screen television in the lobby with the feed. At halftime, with UAlbany holding a 42-7 lead, there seemed to be as many people around the television as there were in the stands. When Wagner intercepted a pass to seal the win, most people just quietly walked away, back to their seats.

A few hours later, some of those same people were on the field, celebrating alongside Ford and his players, "We are the champions" still thumping through the speakers.

No, Saturday wasn't perfect, but the last game at University Field turned out satisfying enough. Somehow, that seems just right.